


The Selfish Giant

by nancymoron



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, POV Second Person, Protective Older Brothers, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 13:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20835956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nancymoron/pseuds/nancymoron
Summary: YOU ARE MURDOC NICCALS, AND YOU ARE EMPTY.No, no. Don’t tell me you’re not. You’re empty, aren’t you ? A vessel. But you aren’t the kind of vessel that wants to be filled, are you? No. You reach out to people and you touch their hearts and you burn them, because you want them to feel some of that burning emptiness too. that’s all you’re good for. (It’s like it’s all you’ve ever known.)





	1. 001.

**Author's Note:**

> hey hello here's some introspective murdoc backstory i wrote ages ago and im posting it here because i am more powerful than jamie hewlett could ever hope to be!! anyway i live for murdoc and hannibal being brothers. catch me on tumblr @fashionpixiez or on twitter @tankdempseys
> 
> also i just wanted to add if you haven't listened to damon's album everyday robots and more specifically the selfish giant yet, why not? why are you willingly missing out? it's been out for five years and it's great. treat yourself to some straight up melancholy guys

Once, you were a child. I know you don’t remember this and this might be difficult for you to believe, but there was once a brief time in your existence where things were good. 

You never had your own clothes. Everything you wore was a hand-me-down from your brother and you didn’t for a second think to question it because at that time, you were innocent and unscathed by the cruelties of this earth. You were small, so small, and you believed you could talk to birds. 

I only bring this up because you have forgotten the day you presented the frog to your brother, and that is a crying shame. It was raining heavily and you were wearing an ill-fitting raincoat and you held a frog in your hands and offered it to Hannibal. "Look, Han." You said to him; big smiles despite the bitter chill of the wind. "His name is Ozzy."

"Maybe if you kiss him he’ll turn into a prince," your brother snorted. At ten years old, Hannibal Niccals had already seen the horrors of the world and didn’t much fancy the idea of you seeing them too. He was very protective of you back then as he might still be to this day, but of course, you don’t remember that either. 

You’d frowned at him. "He’s not a prince, he’s my friend. I’m not kissing Ozzy, he’s a slimy cunt." You didn’t mean any harm. Nobody had ever told you that it might be a bit mean to call a poor frog a cunt. 

Hannibal groaned out your name, dipping a foot into a puddle. If it weren’t for Ozzy croaking in your hands, you would have jumped in it by now. "You’re not taking it home, so don’t ask!" Hannibal told you— to your obvious disappointment. You opened your mouth wide to argue but Hannibal, ever the wise one, held up a hand to stop you. "No buts." 

Just as you were about to come up with a counterargument that didn’t begin with ‘but', Ozzy hopped out of your hands and into the rain. Hannibal grinned at you as you watched the frog go. You wiped your slimy hands against your brother’s trousers. "Huh. I guess he didn’t want to be friends with me after all."

"Tell him to sod off, then. you don’t need him."

"Yeah, sod off, Ozzy! I don’t need you!" You told the frog, smiling. Now that you weren’t distracted, you took advantage of your wellies and splashed in that ever-growing puddle. From a nearby tree, a rather mangy looking crow squawked at you. Hannibal had rather hoped you wouldn’t hear, but no dice. "Hello!"

"You’re not taking the bird home either!" This earned Hannibal a pout. 

"But she likes me. “ The crow cawed again. "She says she has a secret to tell me."

Hannibal sighed. "Yeah— and that secret is that our dinner’s getting cold. Come on, Dad said he’s making bangers and mash." He offered you his hand and you took it; but not before waving goodbye to the crow. 

You never did see the promised bangers and mash. And you never found out what secret that crow was going to tell you, either.


	2. 002.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for one brief misgendering and one implied one a well as murdoc's asshole boyfriend whom im going to murder with my bare hands
> 
> why does ao3 have to butcher my chapters

September 23rd, 1988.

It’s late when Billy takes you home. You don’t really remember what you took but you know you’re so out of it, mumbling and singing to yourself as you cling to his arm, letting him help you along so you don’t trip and fall into a deep puddle and mess up your makeup. You know he likes when you hold his arm like this. He likes knowing that you rely on him. (This is not something you think too much about. In the future, you will understand what this means. It will haunt you.)

Hannibal is in the kitchen when you and Billy Boy get in. You go through the back door like always because if you go through the front door, Dad will yell at you. He hates when you come through the front door and you don’t know why, you just accept it. You find yourself distracted by thinking too much about doors when Billy Boy shoves you down into a chair near the dinner table— or maybe you trip and fall. Yeah, you probably tripped and fell. You giggle relentlessly at your own stupidity before you look up at your brother. It finally clicks. "Fuck are you doing ‘ere?" You ask him, slurring your words. "You don’t even _live_ here anymore." You run your hands through long, dark hair, moving your fringe away from your eyes. Billy stands behind you in what he must think is an intimidating manner, but it really just makes you laugh. Hannibal is your big brother and he could probably quite easily kick Billy’s ass if he really wanted to.

"Christ… You look like you got mauled by a fucking bear." Hannibal uses a name, but either you don’t hear it or you intentionally ignore it. (You’re too high to tell which one it was. It doesn’t matter.)

Billy Boy leans against the wall and bares his teeth. You think it’s cute, and you smile at him before practically collapsing against the table. You open your mouth to speak but he cuts you off. "Maybe she has." He chuckles, and it makes you flinch. Hannibal sees this, but he doesn’t know the reason. In fact, _you don’t either._ You look at the clock, and Hannibal keeps eating his cornflakes. It is four in the morning. (Only Hannibal Niccals makes cornflakes at four in the morning in a house he doesn’t belong in.)

Hannibal glares at Billy, and a very, very quiet voice in the back of your mind tells you that if you don’t do something soon, a fight is going to break out and somebody is going to wake dad. (You _don’t_ do something. You can hardly move.) 

Billy Boy says some more things that you block out and try not to hear, and Han just gets angrier. He stands up, tells Billy to _get out of the fucking house,_ and when Billy says no, you’re pretty sure you see Hannibal grab a knife from the kitchen counter. You can’t quite tell though, but there’s the sound of the back door slamming. God, you want this to be over. You bury your head into the table and cover your head with your arms. You don’t know how long you sit like that because time doesn’t seem to move, but eventually Hannibal pats your shoulder. You freeze up at the touch. 

"He’s gone now," he mutters, going back to his cornflakes like nothing just happened. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe you’re smashed and you imagined it. Yeah, that’s it. You glance up, holding your breath in case the door slamming woke Dad. It didn’t. "What a piece of shit." 

At that, you snap upwards, big brown eyes narrowing at your brother. "You don’t get to fuckin’ talk about him like that, Hannibal. If you even gave _half_ a shit you wouldn’t have bloody well moved out and you wouldn’t be here just to scrounge the cereal I paid for with my own fucking money! Get out of my fucking house!" It’s the most he’s heard you say all year. (You think it’s more than he deserves.) 

You get up. You don’t have Billy Boy to hold you now so you stumble to the kitchen door, mumbling to yourself about what a cunt your brother is. He doesn’t move to help you go. (Smart move. You’d break his arm if he came near you.) 

You pass out halfway up the stairs. Later, you wake up in your bed.


	3. 003.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> russel tries to be nice. murdoc contemplates his fear of 2D. life is a little bit better now, but it doesn't feel like it.

You have her eyes, you know. You _do_ know this. You’ve been told a million and one times before. _"You have her eyes, face ache,"_ he mutters to you and for once it seems like you’re not even in the room. Oh, how you wish that were true for your own sake. _"The devil’s eyes."_

Every time you hear that you begin to question if you’re human. There’s no point in continuing down this line of thought because the answer never changes: are you human? _Yes,_ of course you are. _But are you?_ You are the devil’s child, a creature out of wedlock. Perhaps that doesn’t make you less human, but… Humans have the capacity to feel love. To feel _anything at all._ I suppose your conception was just an indication of what was to come. 

_He_ made you eggs on toast for breakfast, by the way. No, I know you’re perfectly aware of this. I just felt like reminding you because you ignored him and told him precisely where to shove his toast. He didn’t like that, believe it or not. He was worried about you. You haven’t been eating lately and it’s beginning to wear you down and he was worried about you. He’s been putting in a lot of effort to live with you even though he doesn’t really like you that much and that says a lot. He made you eggs on toast because he noticed you enjoy it— what have you done for _him_ lately? Nothing. He’s convinced himself that you’re an acquired taste and he’ll learn to get along with you, but you’re distancing yourself. 

_Again._

What do you gain from this? He wants you to be a friend. He thinks you’re talented. You know he wouldn’t be here if you weren’t talented but that’s just not everything, is it? He thinks you’re good fun. He might not like you too much and he might think you’re a little bit of a prick, but he also thinks you’re _good fun_ and when he asked you to come and play golf with him, you said no. You don’t need friends. 

And then there’s the other one, of whom you’ve taken to calling _the other one_ because he was too kind to you and it terrified you. Why are you so afraid of him? Is it because you sincerely believe that kindness is a rare commodity on this earth? One so rare that he must be disingenuous? Why do you think he’s going to _hurt_ you?

Nobody has been as kind to you as he has. (And despite everything, he _is_ kind. Despite everything, he still believes that you are worth it. He believes it even if _you_ don’t.) You owe him everything you are, because without him you’d probably still be back there in awful, shitty rock bands and working too many jobs to pay rent. And yet you tell him the opposite. You make him believe that you are god because you know he will. You make him believe you saved his life, when in reality _he is the one that saved yours._

Why won’t you let yourself care about them? Why won’t you accept that for once, perhaps you actually have friends? Why are you perfectly happy to make people loathe you, why do you enjoy scaring them away?

No, Murdoc, you aren’t human at all. _You won’t let yourself be._


End file.
